*Essay for Math class, hope you like it.**
Math has been said to be a language all its own. It is everywhere, expressed in just about everything. Used for both good and bad, math has provided us with everything from massive weapons to great thinkers. Thinkers who have reshaped our world helping us see past just the surface and beyond. People, who have shown us the error of our ways, people like Bertrand Russell.
Bertrand Russell is one of the most interesting mathematicians I have read about. His father wished Bertrand to be Agnostic. Meaning, to believe there is no real way to know if a god or goddess exists or not. Some call Agnosticism the first step to Atheism. From the countless quotes like, “My own view on religion is that of Lucretius. I regard it as a disease born of fear and as a source of untold misery to the human race.”-Has Religion Made Useful Contributions to Civilization 1930 (Haught, 1996). One could assume he had no love for any god or goddess and in fact lacked belief in their existence.
There was more to this above average intelligent man. His mother died when he was only two. His father died two years after leaving Russell at the mercy of an orphanage. He was taught Christianity despite his father’s wishes. In Bertrand’s mind, this was the best thing that could have happened to him. He said in countless quotes and articles that being forced into belief made him an Agnostic. Ironically, the deaths of his parents seemed to inspire such passion in him, turning his pain into fuel.
Bertrand Russell had many interests. His interests ranged from mathematics and philosophy to social protest, freethought, and sexual morality. Born into a titled English family in 18th May 1872, Russell attended Cambridge University where he became a lecturer in logic and mathematics. He wrote many books, one of his most famous, “Why I am not a Christian,” first given as a speech at Battersea Town Hall in 1927, became a classic refutation of supernaturalism.
Being arrested and fired on several occasions for his writing and questioning of such things like the government and religion, he was a pioneer of his time. Alan Wood once referred to Russell as “The leading questioner of our times” (Haught, 1996). The truth is that Russell was more than just a questioner, he was also an activist.
Russell signed up to support women during 1907 during the suffrage movement. Along with Allen and Fenner Brockway he formed the No-Conscription Fellowship (NCF), an organization that planned to campaign against the introduction of conscription. As a founding member of the Union of Democratic Control (UDC), the most important in anti-war organizations during the First World War, he argued for a foreign policy that was under parliamentary control. This led to the passing of the Military Service Act in January of 1916. These are just a few of his accomplishments there are many more.
While working on his Principles of Mathematics, some time in May or June of 1901, Russell discovered his paradox. Russell’s paradox is the most famous logical or set-theoretical paradoxes (Menzel, 2003). This paradox shows the contradiction in Frege’s, Naïve set theory.
In short the concept of Russell’s paradox goes something like this: “Consider the set M to be "The set of all sets that do not contain themselves as members". Formally: A is an element of M if and only if A is not an element of A.(Wikipedia)” By doing this he created a new way of seeing math.
Despite all the hurdles life presented him, Bertrand Russell was more than just a mathematician. He was even more than just an intelligent man; he was a man who had a vision, a mission and a great mind of reason. This man changed the world. Bertrand Russell died in February of 1970 at the age of ninety-two. However, his life works will forever live on carrying his memory and everything he stood for though generations.
